


Solve for X

by Moorishflower



Series: Fifty AUs [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>According to Sherlock, math is more interesting than biology. John automatically assumes he's a virgin. For the prompt 'Sherlock is a bored mathematician and John is the biology teacher he tortures for fun.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solve for X

John has known a great many mathematicians in his life. Having bounced from one university to the next for the past five years, he considers himself to be, if not intimately acquainted with them, then at the very least some sort of amateur authority. He often finds himself sharing a building or classroom with the mathematics or business departments (one of the downsides of being a microbiologist being that he tends to get shuffled off into dark corners or else pushed a bit further towards the other department’s space, as if to say “here he is, he’s your problem now.”), and so he’s had plenty of both time and opportunities to observe these fascinating creatures in their natural habitat.

That is, until Sherlock came along.

“ _Fascinating_ ,” Sherlock murmurs, and John gently sets down his goggles (which he had been about to put on) and finishes pulling on his right glove. He stares at Sherlock, who is dangerously close to his contained culture of _Stachybotrys chartarum_. After a minute, he clears his throat.

“That’s toxic, you know,” he offers, in case Sherlock (who apparently rarely, if ever, watches television) doesn’t recognize the greenish-black mold for what it is.

Sherlock hums. “So it is.”

“So…you shouldn’t be playing with it.”

Sherlock raises both hands in a clear display of ‘but how can I be playing with it when I’m not even touching it?’ John rolls his eyes and then picks up his goggles again. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to your job?” Assuming he has one, although whatever it is that Sherlock does, it’s not here at the university. John has checked the staff rosters for every single mathematics, physics, and economics department he could think of and he has yet to find Sherlock’s name on any of them. From this, he has deduced that Sherlock Holmes is either an apparition sent to haunt him for all of his misdeeds, or else, possibly, some sort of figment of John’s imagination. No one _else_ seems to be bothered by him.

“My job,” Sherlock murmurs, “allows me to work my own hours. These calculations are wrong.”

John wonders, even as he peers over Sherlock’s shoulder in order to look at his notes, what sort of job allows you to take off four to five hours per day in order to bother lowly, poorly paid microbiologists. Frowning, he attempts to recalculate the numbers in his head, and then gives up and goes hunting for his TI-83.

When he comes back, calculator in hand, Sherlock has already fixed it for him. John frowns again. Sherlock continues to look smugly unaffected.

“I have a proposition for you, John.”

“Yes, I _will_ pay you money to leave me alone,” John says, automatically. Sherlock furrows his brow at him, and then continues on as though John never spoke at all.

“I need a flatmate.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“You are the perfect candidate. Quiet, tidy, and respectable. Mrs. Hudson will love you.”

John doesn’t dare ask who Mrs. Hudson is at this point. He puts on his respirator and then, voice muffled, says, “I’ve already got a flat, thanks.”

Sherlock snorts. “That place off of Charlotte Street? Close to the university, to be sure, but don’t you tire of coming home to little more than a bed and bathroom? You’ve no friends to speak of, your décor screams ‘permanent bachelor,’ so you’ve no wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or otherwise…and you never speak of your family. Your phone is engraved ‘to Harry,’ but I’ve never heard you say mention him before. There are scratches around the dock connector, but nowhere else. Fumbling to plug the phone in, then. Your estranged brother is an alcoholic.”

John blinks, too stunned to feel any real amount of annoyance. If he’s being honest, that was…that was amazing.

Sherlock is staring at him. “Well? Did I get it right?”

“Almost,” John says faintly, and Sherlock’s expression crumbles like he’s just been told his puppy died. “Harry is my sister.”

“ _Ah_. Your sister. I should have realized. So, will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Will you come and _live_ with me, John, do keep up.”

And John, who, it is true, has no real friends, no romantic prospects, and little – if any – contact with his family, pulls up his goggles so that he can study Sherlock with eyes unhindered by tinted plastic.

“If I say ‘yes,’ will you stop bothering me when I’m working?”

Sherlock grins at him, quick, a little bit rakish. “Of course not.”

 _Well, it was worth a try,_ John thinks, and then, lowering his goggles again, he says, “Sure, why not? My life could use a little bit of excitement.”


End file.
